Steven Naismith has labelled Hearts' performance at St Mirren as a 'tale of two halves'.
The Jambos found themselves two goals down at the break in Paisley in a performance blasted as 'nowhere near acceptable' from the interim boss. They recovered in the second period to rescue a point with Lawrence Shankland firing home from the penalty spot deep into added-time to share the spoils in a four-goal contest.
Aberdeen's draw with Hibs means it was a missed opportunity for the capital club to close the gap on Barry Robson's men in the race for third in the Premiership. The gap remains at five points with just three fixtures to go - with the Dons making the trip to Tynecastle next weekend in a huge showdown in the battle for best of the rest.
READ MORE: St Mirren 2 Hearts 2 as Jambos claw back point from late penalty - 3 things we learned
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Finishing behind Celtic and Rangers has the strong possibility of guaranteed European group stage football with the Hoops heavy favourites to lift the Scottish Cup. A Europa League play-off round with the guaranteed parachute of Europa Conference League group stage participation would bring a cash boost of millions.
Speaking after the draw in Paisley, Naismith told the Hearts official website: "It was a tale of two halves. The first-half performance is nowhere near acceptable. Since I have come in, I haven’t seen anything like that in terms of being safe in possession, second best, not having the fight or the energy that we have had in previous two games.
“That’s not acceptable at Hearts. It’s not acceptable for where we want to be and it’s not acceptable from the players showing that in the last 18 months, to just decide we’re not doing that, it’s not clicking today.
“To be successful, you need to dig deep in these moments and decide the game by your hard work, your decision making and not being safe or passive.
“In the second half, we were up against it. I didn’t agree with a few of the decisions that made our job much harder. For the second goal, it isn’t a foul for me. I think Hilly does well to come through and win the ball.
“That cost us. At the end of the day, I’m frustrated because of the first half performance, but I said to the players, I have hope because the second half was good.
“We had key moments in the second half, when we made the right decision, in the first half, we made the wrong decision. We didn’t play forward; we weren’t brave but in the second half we got big performances from big players in key moments.”
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